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BILL JOHNSON: YSU is the best bang for your education bucks

You may have heard, and maybe even believe yourself, the value of a four-year college degree has decreased. Well, for Pete’s sake! What is the basis for such thinking, and where do Youngstown State University and our region fit in?

This is the first of several articles over the coming weeks that will address these and other important questions regarding YSU and the post-secondary (after high school) education of our region. We’ll highlight how YSU is designing itself to be THE anchor university of our region and the post-secondary educational opportunity of choice by offering affordable and high-quality education that will transform the region’s workforce and contribute to sustainable regional economic prosperity.

YSU will accomplish this by offering a full continuum of post-secondary education choices — from credentials / certificates required to enter the workforce today to associate, bachelor, master, and doctoral degrees, all in one university system. This transformative process emerged as a result of the unfortunate circumstances created by the closure of Eastern Gateway Community College, and YSU’s desire to not only fill that void, but to also to enhance educational offerings for the region, including the Upper Ohio Valley.

So, where does all the negativity regarding a college education come from? Sure, there are valid reasons to have questions, as the cost of a college education continues to climb and the ability to afford it seems out of reach for many Americans.

But even these claims can be distorted. For example, a Gallup Poll from July 8 titled “U.S. Confidence in Higher Education Now Closely Divided” reported that “nearly as many U.S. adults have little or no confidence as have high confidence” in higher education. However, more specifically, the poll reported 36% of U.S. adults have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence, and 32% have some confidence, while only 32% have little or no confidence in higher education.

Some major media outlets chose to focus on the low confidence statistics, because that seems to fit today’s attack on the higher education narrative. Sure, there is no doubt there is cause for concern. But to understand the real issues, we must be sure we are talking apples and apples, not apples and oranges.

For example, the same Gallup Poll points out in 2015, 57% of U.S. adults had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in higher education, while 10% had little or no confidence. But if you examine the 2015 report closely, it is difficult to understand how the 2015 report and the current Gallup Poll compare, since it does not appear that the same questions were asked in 2015.

Regardless of how one chooses to interpret or present the Gallup findings, 68% of U.S. adults surveyed had some — or higher — levels of confidence in higher education. And while this is admittedly down from 2018 (82%) and 2015 (90%), this forthcoming series of articles is intended to influence those 32% with just some confidence in higher education.

By presenting actual facts about what we are doing at YSU, we intend to help the great people of our region better understand the value of credentials, certificates and college degrees and thereby shift their opinion to having a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in higher education. And for those who already have a high level of confidence in higher education and YSU, we intend to give you even more reasons to amplify that perspective.

As Gallup also recently indicated in its report titled “Americans More Confident in Two-Year Schools,” the forthcoming articles will address how YSU is responding to the attributes that make two-year schools “more attractive” than four-year schools. And, importantly and notably, we’ll show how YSU will accomplish this while maintaining the university’s status as one of the premier 14 four-year post-secondary main campuses in the state of Ohio.

YSU will accomplish this via a robust and relentless focus on student success and academic program quality at a very affordable price. And YSU will increase the value proposition (i.e., more bang for your buck) by launching the addition of new associate degrees to expand an already purposefully designed portfolio of educational offerings as well as offering new certificates / credentials (aviation, machining, welding, commercial driver’s license, etc.). These new expanded academic programs, combined with existing bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, will add value to our region’s workplace.

A strong case can made that YSU is not just the best of both worlds (two- and four-year degree programs); rather, because we are offering the full continuum of postsecondary educational choices as well as up-skilling, credentialing and reskilling opportunities under one university umbrella. We are the best of ALL worlds related to serving the workforce needs of our region, including the Upper Ohio Valley.

Now you “KnowY” YSU is a special place to get your education. Stay tuned for the next article, and we’ll give you even more reasons to think so.

Bill Johnson is the president of Youngstown State University and a former U.S. representative for the 6th Congressional District of Ohio.

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